Announcing NCM 7.7With NCM 7.7, you can examine the rules that make up an access control list for a Cisco ASA device. Then you can apply filters to display only rules that meet the specified criteria, order the rules by line number or by the hit count, and much more. See new features and improvements.

Install the WPM server

Table of contents

WPM provides separate installers for its Server, Recorder, and Player components. Installing the Server also installs local copies of the Recorder and Player. You can then may install additional copies of the Recorder and Player on other computers as needed.

The Web Console requires that Microsoft IIS is installed on the WPM Server. If you do not install IIS at this point, you must install IIS later, and then configure a website for the Web Console to use.

If an IIS installation was required, launch the installer again, and then click Next on the Welcome window.

A server reboot may be required after installing IIS.

Accept the terms of the license agreement, and then click Next.

If you want to install WPM in a destination folder other than the default given, click Browse, select the required installation folder, and then click OK.

Click Next on the Choose Destination Location window.

Confirm the current installation settings, and then click Next on the Start Copying Files window.

Click Finish when the Setup Wizard completes.

If you are evaluating WPM, click Continue Evaluation.

If you are installing a production version of WPM, click Enter Licensing Information, and then complete the following procedure to license your WPM installation:

If you have both an activation key and access to the Internet, select the first option, I have Internet access and an activation key..., enter your Activation Key, and then click Next.

If you are using a proxy server to access the Internet, check I access the Internet through a proxy server, and then provide the Proxy address and Port.

If you do not have access to the Internet from your designated WPM server, select This server does not have Internet access..., click Next, and then complete the steps provided.

Completing the configuration wizard

Using the Configuration Wizard, the following procedure completes and configures your WPM installation.

Confirm that you have designated a SQL server database instance for WPM.

Confirm that the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager is not open while the Configuration Wizard is running.

SolarWinds recommends that you close any and all browsing sessions that may be open to the web console before starting the Configuration Wizard.

During configuration, the SolarWinds polling engine will shut down temporarily with the result that, if you are actively polling, you may lose some polling data. SolarWinds recommends that you perform upgrades during off-peak hours of network usage to minimize the impact of this temporary polling stoppage.

Configuring WPM:

The sysadmin role and the sa user account are always members of securityadmin.

To ensure that all updates and changes are installed correctly, you must stop all services.

Specify the SQL Server instance to store network data.

If you are using SQL Express, specify your instance as (local) and use a strong password. For more information about authentication with strong passwords, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/ms143705.aspx. SolarWinds recommends against the use of SQL Express in production environments due to inherent limitations.

The selected instance must support mixed mode or SQL authentication with strong passwords. A strong password must meet at least three of the following four criteria:

Contains at least one uppercase letter.

Contains at least one lowercase letter.

Contains at least one number.

Contains at least one non-alphanumeric character, e.g., #, %, or ^.

Provide credentials, if required, to log into the selected instance.

In general, SolarWinds recommends using SQL Server Authentication to ensure that the WPM server can always access the SQL Server, even when it is hosted remotely on a separate server.

If you are using an existing database, the user account needs only to be in the db_owner database role for the existing database

If you are using an existing SQL account, the user account needs only to be in the db_owner database role for the SolarWinds database

If you are creating a new database, the user account must be a member of the dbcreator server role. The sysadmin role and the sa user account are always members of dbcreator

If you are creating a new SQL account, the user account must be a member of the securityadmin server role

Click Next.

If you are creating a new database, select Create a new database, provide a name for the new database, and then click Next.

If you are using an existing database, select Use an existing database, type the database name or select it from the list, and then click Next.

If you want to create a new SQL account for the polling engine and Web Console to use for accessing the database, select Create a new account, provide an account name and password, confirm the account password, and then click Next.

If you want to use an existing SQL account to provide database access to the polling engine and Web Console, select the existing account, provide the appropriate password, and then click Next.

If you need to specify a particular IP address for the SolarWinds Web Console, provide the IP address of the host web server.

Specify both the Port through which you want to access the Web Console and the Website Root Directory into which you want to install Web Console files.

If you specify any port other than 80, you must include that port in the URL used to access the Web Console. For example, if you specify an IP address of 192.168.0.3 and port 8080, the URL used to access the Web Console is http://192.168.0.3:8080.